Apparatus for the treatment of cardboard and the like for the manufacture of cardboard boxes or containers



Nov. 19, 1963 T. D. BISHOP 3,111,067

APPARATUS FOR THE TREATMENT OF CARDBOARD AND THE LIKE FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF CARDBOARD BOXES 0R CONTAINERS Filed Feb. 28, 1962 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 IIIIHZIHTIIIIIIlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll lIIIHIHIIIIHIIIIIIIIIII llllllllllllllllllllllllll ll! Nov. 19, 1963 T. D. BISHOP 3,1 1,067

APPARATUS FOR THE TREATMENT OF CARDBOARD AND LIKE FOR THE MANUFACTURE'OF CARDBOARD BOXES OR CONTAINERS 1962 s Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Feb. 28,

Nov. 19, 1963 T. D. BISHOP 7 APPARATUS FOR THE TREATMENT OF CARDBOARD AND THE LIKE FOR MANUFACTURE OF CARDBOARD BOXES 0R CONTAINERS 2 s Shee ts-Sheet 3 Filed Feb 28 United States Patent Office 3,lll,057 Patented Nov. 19, 1963 APPARATUS FOR THE TREATMENT OF (IARD- BOARD AND THE LIKE FOR THE MANUFAC- TURE OF CARDBGARD BOXES R CONTAINERS Thomas Desmond Bishop, Solihull, England, assignor to The Deritend Engineering Company Limited, Birmingham, England, a British company Filed Feb. 28, 1962, Ser. No. 176,337 Claims priority, application Great Britain Mar. 1th, 1961 4 Claims. (Cl. 93-532) The present invention has relation to apparatus for the treatment of cardboard and the like for the manufacture of cardboard boxes or containers, and is concerned with the creasing and slotting of the board preparatory to its being folded into a box formation. The slotting of the board is necessary to provide the flaps for constituting the box and the invention is designed to carry out these operations very speedily and with ease of adjustment of the apparatus to suit various blank requirements and said invention consists in the combination of a transverse or bar creasing machine with a slotting machine for the manufacture of cardboard box blanks, the mechanism being in each instance of an adjustable character to vary the spacing of the creases and the spacing of the slots, common manual control means being provided for affording synchronised adjustment to the creasing and slotting machine so that the ends of the slots always register with the parallel creases.

In order that the invention may be clearly understood and readily carried into practice reference may be had to the accompanying explanatory drawings in which:

FIG. 1 illustrates in elevation 21 bar bender or creaser (left) and a slotting machine (right) with synchronised setting or adjusting mechanism in accordance with the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the mechanism shown in FIG. 1

FIG. 3 illustrates in vertical section elevation the setting mechanism for synchronising the two machines in adjustment.

FIG. 4 illustrates sectionally the bar bender mechanism.

FIG. 5 is a longitudinal section on line 55 of FIG. 4 and FIG. 6 illustrates a blank manufactured in accordance with the present invention.

Describing the creasing machine by the bar bending method, see FIG. 4, there is provided upper and lower elongated rollers b and c mounted in suitable hearings in the structure and the upper roller b carries two longitudinal bars 17 b which register with two longitudinal grooves (one c is shown) provided in connection with the lower roller c and as the cardboard a passes between the rollers parallel grooves or creases are accordingly provided therein.

In FIG. 6 of the drawings there is shown a blank (1 of cardboard or the like having two parallel creases a and four slots a It is to be noted that the slots a reach substantially to the centre of the creases a The creases are made by the bar bender machine, left hand side of FIG. 1 and FIG. 4 and the slots are made by a rotary slotting machine such as that described in our prior United States Patents Nos. 2,701,613 and 2,710,061 issued February 8, 1955 and June 7, 1955, respectively. It will be appreciated that different blanks a with differently spaced creases a and differently spaced slots a are required by the box manufacturer using the present apparatus and the present synchronised setting mechanism enables the creases of the bender to be set to particular spaced requirements and also simultaneously adjusts the slotting machine so that the slots reach the creases. Continuous gear wheel trains are used at each end on both bender and slotter and these are geared to the setting or adjusting mechanism so that upper and lower rollers of the bender and slotter are always correctly set with respect to each other.

In P16. 5 the bar bender tool b on the upper roller b is mounted in a tool holder b fixed to the roller b, the other bender tool b mounted in a tool holder b adjustably mounted on the roller b, the tool holder 32 being attached at each end to a gear Wheel e through the medium of a bracket b The same remarks apply to the grooves in the bottom roller, one is fixed and the other adjustable, both tools being mounted in the same manner as b and 11 The main rollers are geared together at each end of the machine by a train of gear wheels 1, gears e carrying the adjustable bars on the respective rollers being geared to each other in similar manner to the gearing of the main rollers 12, that is to say, the rollers and gears are always in gear. The gears e can be rotated to vary the distance between the creases and when this adjustment has been obtained one gear wheel e of one train is fixed to the corresponding gear wheel of another train, and

this fixing and adjustment may be effected by a suitable clutch mechanism (FlG. 3) outside the frame of the machine.

g and h are the gear wheels concerned with the adjustment of the slotting machine as described in our patents aforesaid Nos. 2,701,613 and 2,710,061. The creasing or bar bender mechanism and the slotting mech anism are assembled side by side, see FIG. 1, and are virtually contained in the same structure.

Reference is now directed to FIG. 3 of the drawings showing the mechanism for synchronising the two machines in adjustment. i is a power driven shaft. i is a sleeve on shaft 1' which takes a bearing in frame member 1' at the front of the machine i F, i are components attached to sleeve i i is in the form of a female cone. k is a member secured to shaft 1' and it carries a male cone member k which co-operates with female cone member i k and i can be locked together or freed by means of fastening pin 1: on cone member k l is a pinion having its shaft rotatably mounted in the member k. The member 1' has internal teeth which mesh with pinion l. Pinion i is mounted upon sleeve i and pinion i is mounted upon the shaft i.

In operation the fastening k is firstly released and this in turn releases the cone members i k Next I is rotated by a spanner or like device to rotate pinion I, this rotates the internally toothed ring 1' together with i i and pinion i in relation to pinion i It is to be noted from PEG. 1 that pinion i meshes with gear wheels e and g whereon pinion i meshes with gear wheels 1 and h. Throughout the adjustment all pinions are in mesh. When adjustment has been made fastening k is tightened to lock the two cone parts i k solidly together so that the drive now continues through i and i in their new relationship. Therefore any relative rotation of the two intermediate gear wheels i 1' will result in a corresponding synchronous relative rotation of the main train of gears on the rollers thereby adjusting the radial distance apart of the bar bending tools synchronously with the same radial distance apart of the slotting tools.

The present creasing machine is particularly suitable for use in close association with the slotting machine such as that forming the subject matter of our prior Patents Nos. 2,701,613 and 2,710,061 wherein the knives are radially adjustable.

Here again the male and female knives are in pairs and are adjustable around rollers and are geared together in parallel trains and means are provided for obtaining and maintaining the proper adjustment from a common source and said means may be associated with the fixing of the bar benders of the creasing machine, as previously described, so that when the bar benders are adjusted the male and female knives are simultaneously adjusted so that when a blank is passed through the two machines parallel creases are provided by the one machine and longitudinal slots (a FIG. 6) leading from the centre of the creases to the edges of the blank by the second machine, and the present dual mechanism may provide for the setting of the creasing and correct setting of the slots by a synchronised simultaneous control.

In addition to employing bar bending tools for creasing, cutting tools may be employed on rollers similar to those previously described for carrying the bar bending mechanism and in which case cutting of the board could be effected as a continuation of the crease.

I claim:

1. The combination of a creasing machine with a slotting machine for the manufacture of box blanks comprising a pair of rotatably adjustable bar benders engageable with a pair of complementary rotatably adjustable grooved creasing members mounted in the creasing machine, a pair of rotatably adjustable spaced knives engageable with a pair of complementary rotatably adjustable slotted members mounted in the slotting machine, two gear wheels associated with the bar benders and two gear wheels associated with the creasing members and in engagement therewith, two gear wheels associated with the knives and two gear wheels associated with the slotted members and in engagement therewith, a driven shaft, a sleeve on the shaft, a first pinion on the shaft, a second pinion on the sleeve, the pinions engaging two of the gears of each bending and slotting train, a first cone member carried by the sleeve, an internally toothed wheel carried by the first cone member, a second cone member on the shaft and cooperating with the first cone member, and an adjustment pinion carried by the second cone member in mesh with the internally toothed wheel, the first and second pinions being driven through the cone members which are releaseable to permit selective rotation of the adjustment pinion to rotate the internally toothed wheel together with the first cone member, the sleeve and the second pinion relative to the first pinion.

2. The combination of a creasing machine with a slotting machine for the processing of box blanks, the creasing machine making parallel creases in the blanks and the slotting machine making slots in the blanks which lead from the centers of the creases to the edges of the blanks, and manually operated control means common to both machines for adjusting the respective spacings between creases and slots and simultaneously so adjusting the machines that the ends of the slots always register with the creases.

3. The combination according to claim 2 wherein gear means are provided for driving the machines including a pair of pinions adapted for relative rotative adjustment resulting in a corresponding synchronous adjustment of the machines.

4. The combination according to claim 3 wherein manually operable clutch means is provided for effecting the adjustment of the gear means, whereby the gear means is adjustable but nevertheless always is in gear.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,977,812 Swift Oct. 23, 1934 

1. THE COMBINATION OF A CREASING MACHINE WITH A SLOTTING MACHINE FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF THE BOX BLANKS COMPRISING A PAIR OF ROTATABLY ADJUSTABLE BAR BENDERS ENGAGEABLE WITH A PAIR OF COMPLEMENTARY ROTATABLY ADJUSTABLE GROOVED CREASING MEMBERS MOUNTED IN THE CREASING MACHINE, A PAIR OF ROTATABLY ADJUSTABLE SPACED KNIVES ENGAGEABLE WITH A PAIR OF COMPLEMENTARY ROTATABLY ADJUSTABLE SLOTTED MEMBERS MOUNTED IN THE SLOTTING MACHINE, TWO GEAR WHEELS ASSOCIATED WITH THE BAR BENDERS AND TWO GEAR WHEELS ASSOCIATED WITH THE CREASING MEMBERS AND IN ENGAGEMENT THEREWITH, TWO GEAR WHEELS ASSOCIATED WITH THE KNIVES AND TWO GEAR WHEELS ASSOCIATED WITH THE SLOTTED MEMBERS AND IN ENGAGEMENT THEREWITH, A DRIVEN SHAFT, A SLEEVE ON THE SHAFT, A FIRST PINION ON THE SHAFT, A SECOND PINION ON THE SLEEVE, THE PINIONS ENGAGING TWO OF THE GEARS OF EACH BENDING AND SLOTTING TRAIN, A FIRST CONE MEMBER CARRIED BY THE SLEEVE, AN INTERNALLY TOOTHED WHEEL CARRIED BY THE FIRST CONE MEMBER, A SECOND CONE MEMBER ON THE SHAFT AND COOPERATING WITH THE FIRST CONE MEMBER, AND AN ADJUSTMENT PINION CARRIED BY THE SECOND CONE MEMBER IN MESH WITH THE INTERNALLY TOOTHED WHEEL, THE FIRST AND SECOND PINIONS BEING DRIVEN THROUGH THE CONE MEMBERS WHICH ARE RELEASEABLE TO PERMIT SELECTIVE ROTATION OF THE ADJUSTMENT PINION TO ROTATE THE INTERNALLY TOOTHED WHEEL TOGETHER WITH THE FIRST CONE MEMBER, THE SLEEVE AND THE SECOND PINION RELATIVE TO THE FIRST PINION. 